March 26, 2004
PAGING FOX NEWS:
Bye, bye Banfield (Lloyd Grove, March 26, 2004, Jewish World Review)
Onetime cable television star Ashleigh Banfield — a publicity-magnet even before she achieved celebrity in the aftermath of 9/11 — is out at NBC News. [...]The native Canadian was a controversial figure at NBC, where detractors spread rumors of diva-like behavior and sniped at her supposed journalistic deficiencies.
Banfield didn't try to butter up colleagues and supervisors, and instead cast herself as an enemy of the Establishment. She once showed up for anchor duties at MSNBC's Secaucus, N.J., studios sporting a T-shirt that shouted, in garish glitter: "Starf — — r." But on camera, the message was discreetly concealed by a conservative jacket.
On Sept. 11, 2001, her dramatic reports from Ground Zero won her star status and her own nightly live show from Afghanistan and Pakistan, "A Region in Conflict" (for which she wore a burqa and dyed her hair) and, later, "Ashleigh Banfield: On Location."
Of course, her main "journalistic deficiency" was that she wasn't exactly like every other bubblehead on the air; she was actually interesting. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 26, 2004 10:33 AM
Interesting or not (I say not), the buzz about her always seemed to center on her hair and what kind of glasses she was wearing.
Borrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggg...
Posted by: M. Murcek at March 26, 2004 10:53 AMStarf---er. What sort of adult would wear this in public to work?
Posted by: pchuck at March 26, 2004 11:44 AMI'd be careful if I were Fox about hiring Ashley -- based on this speech from last April that even the folks at NBC thought was over the top, one would expect Ms. Banfield to eventually go on set with a "Britt Hume is a butthead" T-shirt under her jacket
Posted by: John at March 26, 2004 12:02 PMlet us not forget the very nice bikini top tan lines we all loved just before september 11th.
Posted by: robert at March 26, 2004 1:18 PMHmmm. Never heard of her.
In future, disregard anything I post about current cultural trends.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 26, 2004 3:46 PMpchuck:
One who works in the entertainment industry.
Also, anyone who works unseen by the general public in casual circumstances, such as janitorial, phone work, or IT.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 27, 2004 2:19 AMI first noticed her in the 2000 Flordia recount controversy. She actually did a very good job. She would get some politician on the line who would start giving her the little girl razzle dazzle and she would sink her teeth into his ankle and bear down hard. When they sent her to the Middle East, it was like all the brains drained out of her head.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 28, 2004 11:20 PM